The primary pressure, exerted from every angle on your agency, is BETTER OUTCOMES. But it's fair to ask, “If we’re already working as hard as we can, and delivering the best healthcare services physically possible, how do we improve?”
Experts agree the answer is, “Make better decisions; decisions based on quantitative data”. Or, data driven decisions. ‘That sounds great’, you comment, ‘but what are you talking about?
Here is a simple example. Last year your CHF patient went to the emergency room with serious complications 3 weeks after admission to home care. Your nurse made 8 visits, well over the prescribed number, but the ACH occurred anyway. This year: your CHF patient has a medication dispenser and three digital monitors (weight scale, bp, and pulse-ox). In the second week the data indicates she missed consecutive doses and this morning had a seven pound weight increase with elevated bp. You call, encourage her to take her medications, wait an hour then re-take her bp and weight. Ninety minutes later you go online to check her measurements, ascertaining effectiveness of her diuretic. Edema clears, bp normalizes, and everyone, especially your patient, wins.
Data-driven decisions mean deploying tools that allow you to make the right decision for the right patient at the right time. Tools don’t substitute for nursing care, they empower it through knowledge.
And that patient who stayed successfully at home rather than going back to the hospital? She just learned why medication adherence is vitally important and will teach her children that lesson, too.
At Healthcom, we deliver the tools you need for better outcomes.